Does Anyone Really Deserve to Make a Living Playing Music?

It seems that I am increasingly talking about making money on this blog. With a music business reporting record lows in album sales and summer tours and festivals still struggling to sell tickets, it shouldn’t really surprise anyone that making a living has become a hotly debated topic among musicians and fans.

Imogen Heap recently bemoaned the difficulties in mounting a tour in her Twitter feed. She has complained that slow sales of records effect tours and vice versa. The Guardian weighs in thusly:

Heap, who in effect has to support herself through record sales to fund the tours, and vice-versa (because she doesn’t have major label backing), therefore gets squeezed. “it’s here + everywhere else,” she replied to one fan who suggested it was just US-based problems. “With few album sales there’s little to pay for the tour. I can’t sustain it. Time to rethink!”

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Which leads us back to the key question. If an artist like Heap – adored by her fans, making copious use of social media such as Twitter, Flickr and MySpace – can’t make it work in the modern world despite touring like a Trojan, and having devoted fans, but without selling truckloads of CDs or getting major label investment, might that really mean that the big labels – so reviled in so many corners – actually are needed?

That is pretty awkward logic. Labels haven’t been able to slow the decrease in album sales (the very same article shows album sales down 12 percent again this year) and they have traditionally had little to do with touring.

I think a more important question to ask is: do artists deserve to make a living? I’m no economist, but one could make the argument that if fans aren’t willing to buy your records and they won’t shell out enough money for you to tour that you aren’t a viable artist in THAT sense. Sure, you can still play and make records, but no one ever promised success.

If it’s money Ms. Heap wants, she can sell out. She can be a songwriter for hire, do endorsements, take all offers.

But she wants to be an artist. That’s admirable. But she’s not entitled to make a good living doing it.

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Isn’t this what’s wrong with the media business in its entirety? From music to movies to newspapers? People complaining that they’re just not making what they used to?

And let’s not focus solely on theft, that’s a knee-jerk reaction. Craigslist helped kill newspapers, by making almost all classifieds free. Craig Newmark is not complaining. He’s leaving money on the table. He’s not doing it to get rich, he wants to provide a service to people, which they love. Isn’t this like the artists of yore, who put their audience before their pocketbooks?

I can’t buy a house. I certainly can’t buy a private jet. And I don’t go out for restaurant meals every night. Because I can’t afford it! So, when Ms. Heap says she can’t afford to tour the way she wants to, I have little sympathy. If she told me she couldn’t eat, didn’t have a roof over her head, that would be different. Then again, if it was because she couldn’t make enough money from playing music, I’d tell her to get a day job, like the rest of the wannabes.

This is the real predicament. Artists have, for a long time, been seen as “rock stars.” We all buy into the lifestyle, the cars, the women. I’ve been reading The Dirt, the Motley Crue autobiography, and it is only about 1/10th about the music and the rest is about the clothes, the drugs, the women…the scene.

That is what sells records and tours, but it is also what alienates regular people from musicians. Fact is, the vast majority of musicians don’t do it for a living. They can’t afford it. But, the impression is that you play a guitar, you get to be a rock star.

Same thing goes in sports. The average NFL player survives about 3 years in the league and makes less than a million bucks. Imagine if you’re entire career of 40 years made you a grand total of a million dollars. That’s about $25k per year – not much is it? For most athletes, careers last a VERY short period of time, so they have to make as much as they can while they can.

Of course, their profession is polluted by the guys who make millions a year and demand new contracts before the old one’s are up just as rock stars complaining about not making enough money drag down the rest of us who are struggling to survive.

Which brings us back to Ms. Heap. I have no idea what he struggles are. I’m sure they are no less than someone like Amanda Palmer, who has admitted she sometimes struggles to pay her rent. Like Lefsetz, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who says they aren’t making enough. If you can’t make it in the business, you can’t, but the very fact reporters care enough to write stories about your woes suggests you are doing a hell of a lot better than most of us.